On "On what there is"

Abstract

All sides in the recent debates over the Quine-Putnam Indispensability thesis presuppose Quine's criterion for determining what a discourse is ontologically committed to. I subject the criterion to scrutiny, especially in regard to the available competitor-criteria, asking what means of evaluation there are for comparing alternative criteria against each other. Finding none, the paper concludes that ontological questions, in a certain sense, are philosophically indeterminate.

Ontological Commitment1

“…3 See Quine (1948) p. 32, Quine (1951a) p. 67, Quine (1951b) p. 11 and Quine (1953b p. 103. For discussion, see Alston (1957), Jackson (1980), Parsons (1982), Routley (1982), Hodes (1990), Lewis (1990), Melia (1995), Azzouni (1998), Yablo (1998) and Priest (2005).…”

In Defense of Quinean Ontological Naturalism

“…3.1 in the paper.) Note that this sort of distinction is also suggested by Azzouni (1998Azzouni ( , 2004. However, neither Quine nor Azzouni distinguish between the descriptive and normative roles for Quine's Criterion (See Sect.…”

Dispensability in the Indispensability Argument

“…For example, Field famously criticizes the Indispensability Thesis (Field, 1980), Jody Azzouni criticizes Quine's Criterion (Azzouni, 1998), and many philosophers including Elliot Sober, Penelope Maddy, and Susan Vineberg have criticized the argument on the grounds that Confirmational Holism is false (See Maddy, 1997;Sober, 1993;Vineberg, 1996). In their criticisms, they have emphasized the importance of one or more of argument's basic premises; but given their particular targets, most critics of the argument (e.g., Azzouni, 1998;Balaguer, 1998;Field, 1980, Katz, 1998Vineberg, 1996) do not provide comprehensive accounts of the argument's premises. Given their respective goals, this is not a criticism; but it does emphasize that, despite receiving a great deal of attention, the argument is typically discussed at a fairly high-level of generality.…”

“…The other premises of the argument have also drawn criticism. For example, Field (1980) and Chihara (2004) argue against the Indispensability Thesis, Azzouni (1998Azzouni ( , 2004) rejects Quine's Criterion, Katz (1998) rejects naturalism and, as discussed in Section 5, Maddy (1997) criticizes the argument in a way that suggests problems for Theory Naturalism.…”

“…For example,Maddy (1997),Resnik (1997), and Colyvan(2001),Azzouni (1998),Vineberg (1996), andBalaguer (1998), refer to the indispensability argument as the "Quine-Putnam Indispensability Argument".…”